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Who Wants An HD Sega Genesis?.................ME!

Analogue's Mega Sg sounds like the ultimate Sega Genesis
With the Mega Sg, now there are no limits.

by Imad Khan

Analogue, the retro console manufacturer behind the Nt Mini and Super Nt, excellent modern NES and SNES reproductions, is now bringing back a seminal '90s rival. The company has announced the Mega Sg, a Sega Genesis, Mega Drive and Master System recreation that can play over 2,180 classic cartridges.

Unlike other retro console clones, Analogue, as its name suggests, doesn't use emulation methods. Rather, the company opts to use an Altera Cyclone V FPGA chip to ensure 100 percent compatibility -- and so that games can be played exactly how they were intended. It's not the exact chip used in the Genesis, but using an FPGA chip that runs off HDL (hardware description language), it can essentially be any other chip. It's a solution that bypasses emulation through an operating system, to connect and speak directly between game cartridge and motherboard.

And yes, for you chiptune fans, the Mega Sg will also have the Yamaha YM2612 sound chip on board so that Michael Jackson's composition of Marble Garden Zone from Sonic 3 will have that same synthpop keytar flare you remember.

Analogue's dedication to retro accuracy doesn't mean that you'll have to pull out your CRT to play. The Mega SG will output to a modern display via HDMI and will upscale to 1080p, again, without input lag.

I also have one of those little GPD XD Android handheld things, and.. honestly, that thing's fantastic.
All the emu's up to PS1 era, and even plays all of my OUYA games.
Has a HDMI Out should I feel the need.

Realistically, that's more than enough for me.

I understand the whole "tech, not emulation" stuff, but .. really.. if you want "the real tech", then dig out your original MegaDrive and play that.
If you're upscaling, then you might as well do it in an emulator so you have the ability to faff about with all the various upscaling settings and smoothings and all the other advantages that that gives you.

...IMO!!

Jayenkai : Making unpopular games for over two and a half decades!
OUYA/Cortex/Android TV compatible .apks available here.

I'm thrilled with my Super Nt, so I've already preordered the Mega Sg. I've also started a Game Gear library from scratch, in anticipation of the $10 adapter that's supposed to come later next year.

Originally Posted by Jayenkai

I understand the whole "tech, not emulation" stuff, but .. really.. if you want "the real tech", then dig out your original MegaDrive and play that.

...IMO!!

It's not about "the real tech" per se, so much as it's about getting better accuracy and less lag than you'd currently get on an ARM-based device. OUYA, GPD, and RetroPi are great, and are viable alternatives to the NES Classic etc. The closest equivalent experience to Analogue's consoles would be a super-expensive high-end scaler (which would still be more laggy) or a very high-end PC with a bleeding edge emulator that supports run-ahead. In other words, it's a $200 device to compete with hardware that costs several hundreds or even thousands of dollars, not hardware in the $30-$99 range.

If we're just comparing console-like devices, though, I look at it as a matter of specialization versus versatility. Being "OK" at a lot of things is valid, but so is picking one thing and doing it exceptionally well. There's something to be said for either approach.

If you're upscaling, then you might as well do it in an emulator so you have the ability to faff about with all the various upscaling settings and smoothings and all the other advantages that that gives you.

I generally dislike scaling filters, but actually the Super Nt does 'em! And it does them in hardware, with less than one frame of lag. I'd bet dollars to donuts that the Mega Sg will too.

Last edited by flamepanther; 10-24-2018 at 05:36 PM.

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "otherwise you wouldn't have come here."